It's finally here! Our first day in Gates Mills...

Hello everyone!

As we walked into the first day of the Marine Science intensive, we were graciously greeted by two boxes of donuts (Mrs. B and Mr. D sure know how to start off a Monday). We’re spending the week at Gates Mills, and then flying off to the Bahamas on December 5th. Today we started off class talking about the trip, and looking at a map of the Island School campus. We saw where the dorms and dining hall were located, and we saw the general layout of our time there would be surrounding this one loop. Then we were told about the run-swims we’d be having every morning at 7, and how they were led by a former Marine (let’s hope they aren’t too intense for our sake).

Check out this fancy map Mr. Daly drew to show us the layout of the Island School and the surrounding areas!

We then started talking about the physiology of marine animals. We went into all the different systems, from circulatory to respiratory, and all the different ways animals could be sorted. It was interesting to learn about the difference in respiration between a human’s lungs and a fish’s gills (and to have some funny pictures of Mr. D thrown in the DyKnow slides as well). We then dived into a dissection of a squid, to learn about the physiology firsthand. This lab was super fun, but also kind of disgusting. We looked at every little inch of the squids, from pulling out their beaks to finding their eye lenses. We even wrote our names using the ink of the squid and the ‘pen’ found within it. By the end of the lab, our hands were covered in ink and squid juice, and the whole room reeked of squid. But luckily, Mrs. B came to the rescue with some scented candles!

  

Zach and Nihaal showing off their squid specimen.

 

Dalia and Sarah wrote this note to their specimen with the squid's own internal skeleton, known as a 'pen,' and it's own squid ink!

After we came back from lunch, we watched a movie about giant squids. We saw the scientists dissect the giant squid, and recognized lots of the same things that we had seen in our dissections from an hour before. We also learned about a giant squid’s life in the deep ocean, like how it catches its prey or reproduces (which is really strange by the way…). We then went off for a short 20 minute break before returning to class.

When we came back, we were welcomed by every senior’s favorite reminder of the ever-so-stressful college process: Mrs. Bischoff. She made sure to remind all of us what not to do while we were gone, lest we end up having to deal with more problems when we return. We then continued on with some more DyKnow about life in the ocean, and how energy moves up the food web (notice that it’s not called a food chain, because we are sophisticated marine scientists who know it's more complicated than that!). We ended class with an interesting rendition of the Bahamian national anthem, “March on Bahamaland.” None of us could figure out the rhythm or tune, and the pitch was a little too high for most of us to reach, but shout-out to Devlin for giving it his all. 

This is the Bahamian flag!

Only a week till the Bahamas! 

Nihaal and Zach